Group says Ohio is violating Americans with Disabilities Act

Tuesday

Jul 8, 2014 at 12:01 AMJul 9, 2014 at 10:43 AM

A legal-advocacy group says Ohio is violating the Americans with Disabilities Act by by operating a system that keeps too many people in institutions, unable to tap into the support they need to live and work in the community. Disability Rights Ohio recently sent a letter to state officials detailing findings of what it said was an 18-month investigation of institutions, day programs and sheltered workshops throughout the state.

Rita Price, The Columbus Dispatch

A legal-advocacy group says Ohio is violating the Americans with Disabilities Act by operating a system that keeps too many people in institutions, unable to tap into the support they need to live and work in the community.

Disability Rights Ohio recently sent a letter to state officials detailing findings of what it said was an 18-month investigation of institutions, day programs and sheltered workshops throughout the state.

The letter included the stories of three Ohioans, each identified only by their initials, who say they have lived in large residential centers for years despite their desire to leave.

One 35-year-old man has been on a waiting list for 12 years to obtain the Medicaid waiver that would help him pay for community-based services. He describes living in the 32-bed institution, the letter says, “as a form of incarceration.”

Disability Rights Ohio did not mention a lawsuit directly but wrote that advocates hope to “ reach a mutually satisfactory agreement without the need to involve the judicial system.”

It asked the state to respond by the end of the month and to consider overhauling the system. About 950 Ohioans with developmental disabilities live in state developmental centers, and about 5,800 are in privately run institutions that vary in size, according to the state.

“We have gotten countless phone calls from individuals who are either in an institution or in the community and at risk of going into an institution because they are not getting the support they need,” said Kerstin Sjoberg-Witt of Disability Rights, which is based in Columbus.

The Americans with Disabilities Act — and a subsequent U.S. Supreme Court decision — says states must serve people with disabilities in settings appropriate to their needs that are most-integrated in the community and least-restrictive.

Sjoberg-Witt said Ohio leads the nation in the number of people with developmental disabilities living in large institutions, defined as those with 16 or more beds. “They aren’t integrated; they don’t have opportunities to be integrated,” she said.

The Ohio Department of Developmental Disabilities is reviewing the letter and will reply this month, spokeswoman Kerry Francis said.

Waivers and the county-based funding system are among the topics being discussed by a work group that convened eight months ago to issue recommendations for the next budget cycle as well as 10 years down the road, said Zach Haughawout, a state Developmental Disabilities deputy director.

“The county boards are a part of that strategic-planning workshop that is looking at that very question,” he said.

Although demand is high, home- and community-based waiver programs are difficult to access for anyone whose situation is not deemed an emergency. About 40,000 Ohioans are on waiting lists for the waivers, and about 34,000 are getting waiver services now, Francis said.

County boards have to pay the non-federal share of waiver costs under the Ohio system, a funding structure that encourages institutional care, Disability Rights says. For institutional placements, the state pays the non-federal share.

Sjoberg-Witt said the state could change that structure. Overall costs might not increase, she said, because institutional care is so much more expensive than home-based services.

The letter says an average annual waiver costs about $58,000 per person, while institutional care ranges from $83,688 annually at a small center to $186,670 a year at a state developmental center.

Attorneys with the Center for Public Representation in Northampton, Mass., and University of Michigan law professor Samuel Bagenstos worked with Disability Rights on the investigation.

rprice@dispatch.com

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